July Hopps Timeline
by ThreadAnon
Summary: This story acts as the prologue of an AU collaboratively built in 4chan's Zootopia threads. 6 years after solving the nighthowler case, Judy Hopps is murdered. 20 years later, Nick Wilde is the chief of police, a grizzled veteran of the force. He finds himself forced to face the past upon hte arrival of his newest officer, July Hopps. Inspiration images: imgur .com/a/32wxK
1. Death at a Funeral

**So, this first chapter has been pretty much retconned by other artists contributing to this AU. The second chapter is still good though** 

* * *

Mike finished the assembly, shouldering the rifle as her peered down over Zootopia Memorial Park. A crowd of mammals formed a path as the casket was carried to the grave. For a moment Mike wondered how they fit the antlers in the rectangular box; did the mortician saw them off, or…no, worry about that later, there's a job to do. Mike tried to focus on the task at hand. He got out of the game years ago, trying to make an honest living as a nurse, yet here he was again, the earpiece he used to communicate with Doug the only piece of equipment missing from this familiar situation. That Doug had been roped into Bellweather's insane conspiracy was bad enough; now Mike found himself a pawn as well in the ewe's continued insanity. Her threats over the phone still gave him chills; he knew she was a master at manipulating people, and the fact that she'd come to be a top ringleader of Zootopia Penetentiary was of no surprise. He was, however, shocked by how much influence she still had over the workings of the prison now that she was out on house arrest. That is was unexpected didn't stop Mike from believing every word when Dawn told him just what she'd have done to his brother if he didn't comply with her demands.

So now here he was, loading a single dart into his rifle as the moment of action fast approached. The liquid in the dart was a deep purple, just like the nighthowler serum Doug had told him about. He tried to console himself, an inner monologue running in an attempt to downplay what he was about to do.

"This'll probably make her go feral but hey, she's a rabbit. What harm can she do?"

-he swung the scope up through the crowd, over the few civilians that turned out, over the lines of officers there to see off the deceased captain-

"There are a lot of bigger officers here, they'll restrain her and get her fixed up in no time."

-over the two moose standing closest to the grave, looking to be in their early 20's—

"The guy had a family? Wife probably left him, took the kids. Just makes what happened to…no, FOCUS, man, FOCUS"

-over the grave, over the headstone, onto her. Officer Hopps

"Nothing dangerous here. Bitchweather is trying to get revenge any way she can, just take the fucking shot."

Mike squeezed the trigger. He didn't stop to watch the dart sink itself into Judy's arm, or the pandemonium that broke out as she fell to the ground. He was already packing up the rifle into the backpack it had come in, sprinting down the stairs to the street, hurriedly making his way away from the park. The burner phone in his pocket buzzed. He flipped it open to the sound of Bellweather's voice:

"Good boy! Seems you're just as good as your brother. I'll be making use of your skills in the near future."

"D…Dawn, I can't…"

"Hush now, little lamb. I know just how to get you to do whatever I want."

She giggled; her 'innocent', pleased-with-herself voice both irritated and scared Mike. That such a monster could take up so unassuming a visage disturbed him more than he'd like to admit. Her voice maintained the unassuming, preppy tone as she continued:

"You'll find cooperating with my demands makes your life far easier than any alternative choices. I'll be in touch! Buh-bye." He pocketed the phone and continued down the street.

* * *

The headlines were the worst part. The first had been the most shocking, a delayed horror striking Mike, his blood running cold as he slowly realized what exactly he was reading:

**Hero Cop, First Rabbit Officer, Murdered at Funeral**

"…Officer Hopps was shot with a dart containing what is, at this time, hypothesized to be a variation of the nighthowler serum employed by Dawn Bellweather during the savage mammal crisis six years ago, commonly referred to as 'The Nighthowler Incident'…"

The cover photo, hastily taken, depicted officers defensively blocking Hopps from the direction Mike had fired, a tiger shouting and pointing towards the building he had been in, mammals running for fear of another shot. At the bottom, in a gap between two wolf officers, was Hopps, lying on her back as a fox officer performed chest compressions. The photo was slightly blurred, but it was easy to see the emotion in the fox's face, caught mid-yell as he tried to assist Hopps.

As the week went on, more details about the incident were released:

"Deadly shot was a potent concentration of altered nightholwer serum mixed with heave amounts of adrenaline"

"Intravenous delivery of the serum enhanced the effects dramatically compared to Bellweather's method of absorbing the chemical through the skin"

"Hopps initially went into cardiac arrest. Though her fellow officers supplied proper emergency treatment, she succumbed to cerebral hemorrhaging at the scene"

The burner phone buzzed on the table. He let it ring.


	2. Nick's Revenge

_"They both had traces of some kind of tranquilizer and stimulant in their systems, Wilde. Any idea how that happened?"_

 _"Probably experimenting with some new crap they cooked up; between the nighthowler incident and…well, there's precedent for this sort of thing, Chief."_

Between Nick and Mike's connections, it only took a few days to find where Bellweather was posted up. The two met by chance, and Mike's guilt wouldn't let him walk away from this, not after what he'd done. And so the two set to work; Mike tried to play his eagerness off as 'proving not all sheep are bad', when all he wanted was to put Bellweather away for good and get away from the fox before he discovered just who the sheep was. Illegal tranqs were easy enough for the pair to come by, and the duo made quick work of clearing Bellweather's safehouse and discretely darting both her and the big ram acting as her guard.

 _"She lured me to an old warehouse. I should have known it was a trap, but at the time I just thought I was meeting an informant regarding her whereabouts. Guess she wanted to finish me off, too."_

Neither hailing a cab nor tailing Nick were difficult. Nick had dropped him off at his apartment on Pack Street after the sheep assured him he wouldn't speak a word of their hit on Bellweather. Doubts about his decision to tail Nick swirled in his mind as the cab navigated the less-congested streets of Zootopia's less popular areas, heading towards the river.

Mike found himself outside one of the abandoned warehouses that lined the river that snaked around Zootopia. Nick's car had pulled inside, with the doors closing shortly after. Mike navigated a rusty stairwell up the side of the building, crawling in through a propped-open window.

 _"The ram, Walter, says he doesn't remember going to a warehouse, though he confessed to collaborating with Bellweather."_

 _"He did suffer a nasty bump on the head when I subdued him, sir. Must've made him a bit forgetful."_

The ram was already out of the car. Mike crept further along the catwalk that lined the upper side of the warehouse interior; so long as he kept quiet and in the shadows, no one would notice his presence. Nick fished around in the trunk of the car, retrieving a metal bat. He pulled one of the two darts Mike had given him from his pocket, jamming it into the ram's arm. After a few seconds he sat up, blearily. Nick brought the bat around into the back of his skull, once again rendering him unconscious.

"Thanks, Finn."

The bat clattered to the ground.

 _"And Bellweather? Autopsy reports say—"_

 _"She tried to stab me, sir. Can't lose your two best officers in under a month, would be bad for morale."_

 _"Wilde, I know that…*sigh*…you'll get away with self-defense on this one."_

Mike watched Nick approach Bellweather's slumped form, injecting her with the second dart. He walked back to the car and fished in the trunk again while she slowly woke up, shakily getting to her feet. Nick approached her again, one hand behind his back, the other brandishing a large butcher's knife.

To the surprise of both sheep, Nick tossed Bellweather the knife. It clattered to the ground in front of her, and she hurriedly scooped it up.

"What are you play—" she managed to say as she looked up from the weapon in her hands, just in time to catch the tire iron in the teeth.

The next two hits rang in Mike's ears as he hurried towards the window he'd entered through. He could hear Nick faintly as he made his escape:

"This is officer Wilde, I've just been attacked, send backup…"

 _"Wilde?"_

 _"Chief?"_

 _"I know how much she meant to you. We all miss her. I miss her. But –DO NOT- let something like this happen ever again. Am I clear?"_

 _"Yes sir."_


End file.
